Newsmakers 6/13/2025: Cindy Coyne; political roundtable
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Boston Globe
26 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Democrats disagree (again). This time, it's about school vouchers.
States will have the ability to opt in or out, presenting Democratic governors with a difficult decision, and one that competing advocacy groups are trying to influence. Democrats for Education Reform, a group closely affiliated with veterans of the Obama administration, has become a leading voice urging the party to cross what has long been a red line, and embrace some forms of private school choice — including the Trump program. The group has prominent allies, including Arne Duncan, who served as secretary of education under President Obama. Duncan is working for the group as a consultant. But the group's new stance in favor of vouchers is provocative within the party — so much so that two former leaders of the organization have quit and are creating a rival group that will oppose vouchers, while supporting other forms of school choice. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Trump's private school choice program is funded by a federal tax credit, and will offer families of most income levels scholarships that can be used for private school tuition, tutoring or other education expenses. Advertisement The group's chief executive, Jorge Elorza, a former mayor of Providence, has argued vouchers are popular with many of the working-class Black and Latino voters who tilted toward Trump in the 2024 presidential election, and whom Democrats are desperate to win back. Advertisement This past weekend, Elorza traveled to a Democratic Governors Association meeting in Madison, Wisc., to make his case. He has been pointing to a provision in Trump's budget bill that will potentially allow the voucher dollars to be spent on not only private school tuition, but also tutoring or exam fees for students enrolled in traditional public schools. He called opting into the program 'a no-brainer.' 'This is literally free money,' he said, 'that is broadly supported by the majority of voters who have steadily drifted away from the party. It just makes sense.' It could be difficult to convince Democratic governors. Many are closely allied to teachers unions, which have resisted vouchers for decades. The unions argue vouchers leech students and dollars from public education. 'Vouchers are a vehicle to abandon public education,' said Randi Weingarten, the influential president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's second-largest teachers' union. In line with the unions, many Democratic politicians have focused their arguments on protecting public school funding. They are also intent on fighting Trump's efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and end racial equity efforts. In a sign of just how fractured Democrats are, a third camp is emerging, situated somewhere between the reform group and the unions. Two former staff members of the group are starting a political action committee and a think tank that will reject vouchers while continuing to push for the expansion of the public charter school sector — schools that are publicly funded, but independently run, and are typically not unionized. The groups will also support other ways for parents to exercise choice, such as making it easier for students to attend public schools outside of their residential zones, and they will push for all schools to be held accountable for student learning outcomes. The political action committee, the Center for Strong Public Schools Action Fund, will support candidates who align with those stances, especially in the South. Advertisement Alisha Thomas Searcy, one of the founders, previously served as the rerform group's regional president for the South, and is a former Georgia Democratic state legislator and charter school executive. Her partner in the new venture, Garry Jones, previously served as the group's political director in Texas. Searcy and Jones split with the group after experiencing legislative battles over private school choice in Georgia and Texas, which are among 18 Republican-leaning states that now offer education savings accounts. These accounts are a type of flexible private school voucher that allows parents to spend taxpayer dollars on private education, for-profit virtual learning, tutoring and homeschooling. Searcy declined to name the funders of the new political action group and think tank. She said they will offer 'a bold, clear vision as Democrats, to show that we are the party that protects public education from those privatization and other attacks, and demands that it work for every student.' Democrats who do support private school choice — including those in the coalition — are looking expectantly toward some of the younger moderate governors in the party, several of whom are being discussed as potential presidential candidates in 2028. Maryland Governor Wes Moore is one of them. In a statement, a spokesperson said the governor was still evaluating the new federal voucher program. A spokesperson for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who has supported school choice in the past, said his administration was also reviewing the program, and pointed out that it does not go into effect until 2027. Advertisement This article originally appeared in .
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Wealthy first-time candidate Cloobeck drops $1.4 million on TV ads in the California governor's race
Wealthy first-time political candidate Stephen J. Cloobeck is spending $1.4 million on television ads starting Tuesday — the first barrage of cable and broadcast messaging that Californians will likely be bombarded with in next year's governor's election. Cloobeck's campaign declined to preview the 30-second ad on Monday, but the candidate confirmed the size of the ad buy. Public records of advertising purchases show that Cloobeck bought space in every California market on cable, as well as broadcast television time in Sacramento. He also bought time in New York City and Washington, D.C. — as well as West Palm Beach, the location of President Trump's Mar-A-Lago. Cloobeck confirmed the size of the buy; a campaign advisor confirmed that they would run through Monday and that he was also launching a social-media effort. 'I will always Fight for California. All Californians deserve the contract to be fulfilled for an affordable livable workable state,' Cloobeck said in a text message. 'Watch [the ad] and you will see how a conservative Democrat fights for All Californians.' The move comes after former Vice President Kamala Harris opted last week against running for governor, leaving a race without a clear front-runner with a large field that is widely unknown to most California voters. The candidates need to raise their name recognition among California's 22.9 million registered voters, which makes Cloobeck's early advertising understandable, according to Democratic strategists. 'It's unprecedented for regular business. Not for this race,' said Democratic media buyer Sheri Sadler, who is not currently affiliated with a candidate in the contest. It's also not unprecedented for Cloobeck, a Beverly Hills philanthropist and businessman. He announced his gubernatorial run in November with a fusillade of television and digital ads. While the 63-year-old's exact net worth is unclear, he made his fortune in real estate and hospitality. He founded Diamond Resorts International, a time-share and vacation property company, which he sold in 2016. Earlier, he appeared on several episodes of the reality-television show 'Undercover Boss,' which sends executives in disguise into low-level jobs at their businesses. While Cloobeck has not run for office before, he has long been a prodigious Democratic donor and fundraiser. He also played a critical role in renaming the airport in Las Vegas after the late Sen. Harry Reid, who he describes as a father figure. The book shelves of his sprawling Beverly Hills mansion are lined with pictures of Cloobeck with Democratic presidents and many other prominent members of the party. Cloobeck announced last week that he was contributing $10 million to his campaign, on top of the $3 million he initially seeded it with. His wealth was on vivid display at the California Democratic Party's spring convention, where canvassers who said they were paid $25 per hour wore royal blue shirts emblazoned with his name chanted his name. Cloobeck said at the time that his campaign had spent 'probably a couple hundred thousand dollars' on the effort.
Politico
2 hours ago
- Politico
Newsom's big pivot on Big Oil
With help from Camille von Kaenel and Noah Baustin OIL ABOUT-FACE: Gov. Gavin Newsom spent the last four years provoking the Big Oil boogeyman. Now, it's haunting him. Newsom's casting of oil companies as the villain behind the state's perpetually high fuel prices seemingly signaled the industry's waning influence in Sacramento as recently as last year's special session. But then two of the state's nine refineries announced closure plans, leaving the governor and Democratic lawmakers scrambling to boost in-state oil supply and find potential buyers to keep the facilities pumping out gasoline and avert shortages that some experts estimate could drive gas prices up by as much as $1.21 per gallon by next August — just as midterm elections will be heating up. The pivot is emblematic of a national Democratic party course correction on cost-of-living issues in the wake of the presidential election — and provides a real-time demonstration of the political risks of pursuing an aggressive transition away from fossil fuels. 'The reality is, if those refineries close and we have increased gas prices, it's going to be a problem for everybody,' said Andrew Acosta, a veteran California Democratic campaign consultant. 'Not just Gavin Newsom, but every Democrat running for office.' The shift has left groups that thought they had Newsom on the anti-Big Oil train with whiplash. Newsom announced a fracking ban in 2021, spearheaded a lawsuit to hold major oil companies liable for climate change damages and pushed legislation to consider a cap on oil industry profits — all while castigating the industry as a corrupt force fleecing Californians. 'They have been raking in unprecedented profits because they can,' Newsom said in October while signing a bill requiring refiners to store more gas to prevent shortages, a concept the industry warned would backfire. 'They've been screwing you for years and years and years.' Fast forward to June, when Newsom's administration unveiled a suite of proposals to keep refineries solvent, including streamlined permitting for more in-state drilling in Kern County. Newsom's office has since circulated a draft bill mirroring those recommendations. 'Refineries all across the globe are struggling,' Newsom said after the proposals were released. 'We've got some challenges, and so just require some new considerations.' And even some environmentalists are having second thoughts after Phillips 66 announced in October that it would close its Southern California refinery by the end of 2025, followed in April when Valero announced the planned closure of its Northern California facility in 2026. 'I think Democrats sort of failed to read the room, perhaps in a way that, unfortunately, Trump did,' said Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California director for the Environmental Defense Fund. 'If we're not acknowledging people's day-to-day reality and the challenges they face, it's really hard for them to care about the existential threat that is climate change.' Newsom spokespeople pointed to the governor's comments during a press conference last week where he called the approach 'completely consistent' with the state's climate agenda, which has 'always been about finding a just transition.' While recent polling shows California voters still want their leaders to fight climate change, the state faces a unique set of circumstances that make the transition particularly complicated. California has long operated as a fuel island, meaning it doesn't have the infrastructure necessary to pipe in refined gasoline from its neighbor and quickly respond to gas shortages when refineries go offline. That leads to price spikes like in 2022 and 2023, when average prices soared past $5 per gallon. Colin Murphy, deputy director of the University of California, Davis' Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy, said that isolation has given the handful of oil companies that operate refineries in the state outsize power to control the market, and that California lawmakers underestimated the industry's willingness to wield that power. The oil industry intends to continue pressing its advantage. Andy Walz, Chevron's president of downstream, midstream and chemicals, said California officials have made the state 'uninvestable' for companies like his and is pushing to unwind key pieces of the state's climate agenda, like its cap-and-trade program and rules aimed at reducing emissions from oil tankers and other ships that dock in the state's ports. 'I don't think they believed the industry was in trouble,' Walz said of California officials. 'I think they misread what was really going on, and it took some real action by some competitors to get them woken up.' Newsom's draft bill does include olive branches to environmental justice groups that have been left feeling burned — including a well stimulation ban and a requirement for drillers to plug two wells for every new well they make — but that hasn't dampened their frustration. EJ advocates are preparing to go to the mat in what's setting up to be an end-of-session brawl. 'It seems like a lot of our elected officials are driven above all by a fear that they'll be blamed for high gas prices,' said Bill Magavern, policy director at Coalition for Clean Air. — AN Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! REFINING THE LANGUAGE: Environmental justice groups have their counter-offer to Newsom's proposal to bolster in-state oil supply to stop refineries from closing and keep gas prices in check. Fifty environmental and community groups signed onto a Friday letter to Newsom, Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire and Speaker Robert Rivas asking to significantly amend Newsom's draft oil legislation. The groups include the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network and the VISIÓN Coalition (notably, they do not include major environmental organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council.) Among their chief asks: if state officials are going to streamline more crude extraction in Kern County, they should cap the number of new wells at 500 (compared to the nearly 3,000 in the local ordinance Kern County adopted earlier this year) and include a 2035 sunset date. They also want to require refiners to disclose more of their business when they tell the state they are considering closing. Faraz Rizvi, APEN's campaign and policy manager, said the goal was to offer a counter-solution to the oil and gas industry's wish list. 'We are trying to hold the line as best as we can to ensure we're protecting communities while also understanding the way the winds are turning,' he said. — CvK CHARGED UP: California's network of batteries installed at peoples' homes is now capable of moving the needle on the state's entire grid, according to a new industry report commissioned by Sunrun and Tesla. A group of virtual power plant aggregators delivered an average of 535 megawatts to the California grid last Tuesday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to a report from research firm Brattle. The energy came from over 100,000 residential batteries, mostly Tesla-manufactured. It was the most energy Sunrun, the largest aggregator of the group, has dispatched from a single distributed power plant in a night. The deliveries were part of a pre-planned test to assess the performance of virtual power plants ahead of the state's hottest months, when their services are most needed. And to Sunrun execs, it was a success — and a major step toward the dream of having batteries on everyday people's property provide utility-scale value to the grid. 'This is no longer a future thing, this is a now thing,' said Chris Rauscher, Sunrun's VP of grid services and electrification. The state was rocked by blackouts in 2020. That led to a push for increased storage to help keep the lights on during extreme heat. At the time, California had about 245 megawatts of residential battery storage capacity. That figure has climbed seven-fold to 1,829 MW as of this April, according to California Energy Commission data. — NB GRID GAMES: Environmental groups are opening their pocketbooks in a fight over how much control California should have over a proposed regional energy market. EDF Action and NRDC Action Fund — political arms of the Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council — announced a six-figure ad campaign Monday pushing state lawmakers to amend Sen. Josh Becker's SB 540, which would establish a West-wide energy market. The ad calls on lawmakers to 'fix' the bill by removing language they argue would dissuade other states from joining an expanded regional market, including a proposed regional council that could remove California energy providers from the market. EDF and NRDC, original co-sponsors, pulled their support last month after Becker amended the bill to include the council after pushback from some unions and ratepayer advocates who argue a regional market could allow the Trump administration to hamper the state's climate goals and expose residents to rate hikes. Backers of the original language say giving California officials too much control of the market would 'make it unappealing or even impossible' for regional energy suppliers to join. Newsom and Assembly Speaker Rivas have committed to getting regionalization over the finish line this session, though the governor has made clear that the policy could come through a different vehicle than SB 540. — AN SETTING THE AGENDA: On Wednesday, Aug. 27, POLITICO is hosting its inaugural California policy summit: The California Agenda. Come see the Golden State's most prominent political figures — including Sen. Alex Padilla and gubernatorial candidates Katie Porter and Xavier Becerra — share the stage with influential voices in tech, energy, housing and other areas at the forefront of the state's most critical policy debates. The live and streamed event is free, but advance registration is required. Stay tuned for more on speakers and discussion topics, and request an invite here. — NASA will announce plans to build a nuclear reactor on the moon, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. — State water regulators told Los Angeles decades ago to take less water from Mono Lake, but the city still hasn't met its requirements. — Are you wondering how tariffs could impact clean energy? Just look at past U.S. solar panel policy.
